Mercedes-Benz Swaps Robots for People on Its Assembly Lines
February 26th, 2016Sure, for luxury items.
Will a customer look at the price of a Mercedes and think, “They should have made a more standardized car so I could save a couple grand.”
No. a Mercedes customer will not think that.
Many luxury brands, from clothes to watches to yachts to planes, rely on human labor. Overall, though, the adoption of machine labor marches on.
Via: Guardian:
Bucking modern manufacturing trends, Mercedes-Benz has been forced to trade in some of its assembly line robots for more capable humans.
The robots cannot handle the pace of change and the complexity of the key customisation options available for the company’s S-Class saloon at the 101-year-old Sindelfingen plant, which produces 400, 000 vehicles a year from 1,500 tons of steel a day.
The dizzying number of options for the cars – from heated or cooled cup holders, various wheels, carbon-fibre trims and decals, and even four types of caps for tire valves – demand adaptability and flexibility, two traits where humans currently outperform robots.
Markus Schaefer, Mercedes-Benz’ head of production told Bloomberg: “Robots can’t deal with the degree of individualisation and the many variants that we have today. We’re saving money and safeguarding our future by employing more people.”
